In presidential politics, an October Surprise
refers to some planned or unforeseen event that
occurs too close to election day for the
candidate who would be negatively affected by
such a surprise to un-do the damage to his or
her vote count. Such a surprise occurred in the last
election cycle when Osama Bin Laden released a
videotape days before the election. For the sake of maintaining some level of
sanity this year, I am praying that no such
surprise arises within the next three weeks.

For caregivers, every new day without some type
of surprise is counted as a blessed relief. In fact, I believe that one of our major
caregiving challenges is to ensure that
unpleasant surprises are kept to a minimum. When my dad took ill in 1990 at the age
of fifty-eight, suffice it to say that we were
about as unprepared as anyone could be. It took an entire month to find the
necessary information that Dad could have found
within minutes. These days, there is no excuse
for any family to be as surprised as we were
when Dad took ill so suddenly.

It is
imperative that all of the adult members of your
family have their healthcare documents in place
in case of such an event happening to your
family. And it is not only unfair but also
irresponsible just to ask your senior loved ones
to fill out their advanced directives since this
affects all of us. In fact, there is no better way to ensure
your parents participation than to place your
own completed advance directives in front of
them and say, “now, let’s get to
work on
yours.” In
this way, you can almost guarantee there will be
no personal October Surprise (or January
Surprise, or February Surprise or July…)